Military veterans apply their unique skills in the corporate real estate industry

Jun 13, 2018

Military veterans apply their unique skills in the corporate real estate industry

Facility management can be a tricky business: systems fail, human errors occur, and standards sometimes slip. The problem, unlike with some other businesses, is that if a building isn’t functioning, it affects our clients tremendously.

BGIS’s job as a critical facilities manager is to minimize the ‘noise’ that small failures and human errors can cause to our client operations, while ensuring uptime and performance for all our facilities. The question then becomes – who’s primed to work in intense environments such as critical environments and data centers, has laser-sharp focus, and follows procedural details as a point of honour? Veterans.

Zach Loggins, a BGIS Standards Program Manager in Asheville, NC, is one such verteran who ensures everything is running smoothly at our client's facilities. Zach was recently profiled in G.I Jobs Magazine for transitioning from the military into a successful career in corporate real estate.

The skill that comes out of the military fits so extremely well in the Critical Environments (CE) business. People who come out of the military are comfortable with following procedures and processes. In the CE world, that’s a requirement. Where FM companies have bumps is where you have people who aren’t used to following complicated procedures to a “T”. If you’re a senior enlisted to officer, project management is all you do every day. If you’re good at ordnance, if you’re dealing with such high stakes, you can be trusted to follow a process.

This is why veterans comprise nearly 23 percent of the total BGIS workforce in the US.